“Only when you’re around, little bird.”
Kieran drives until my eyes feel like they’re bleeding. My roaring stomach has become more vocal by the second—aggressively arguing over a missed lunch and dinner. I wrap my arms around my belly and look out the window toward fire pits. The light illuminates somber, transient faces. Although the homeless population isn’t anywhere near the current epidemic in Los Angeles, it hits home. Ithits homehard.
“There’s a difference in mentality. Some have lost all hope. The others are still resilient. I want to tell them all to find shelter from the cold. They’re probably numb to it . . .”I never was.
“Itfeckingpains me you had to live like this,and aloneno less, as awean.”
A smile twitches over my mouth. I doubt the same sentiment could be extended to the kids hiding out on the condemned floor of the last project housing we passed.
Anyway, I shrug a shoulder, searching for the bright side. “I had a parking structure. Called it my cubbyhole. Might as well have hammered in a mailbox.”
Stiff jawed, Kieran mumbles, “Notfeckingfunny.”
As the Audi creeps down another block, our eyes adjust to the night. I thank him for helping Fiona and her boyfriend.
* * *
Sometime later, with the demeanor of two cops on the beat, I’ve continued to carry the conversation. “I don’t know if the girl loved him, or he loved her, or they just have the same perception oflonelyas you do—”
“What perception oflonely?” Kieran cuts in. For a while now, I thought he hadn’t been listening.
“You said you hated how I was alone. I preferred it.”
Absentmindedly, he snorts. “No clan. That’s not in my blood, Ava, and I was the only kid for well over a decade. Now, Kiera’s alone.”
While we’re searching, I try to draw his attention back to me. “Kiera’s got that humongous head on her shoulders. Sometimes, it’s better to be alone than tethered to the wrong person.”
“Like me?”His lowered, lethal tone has me snapping my head toward him.
“No. Like my ex-husband, Kieran.”
He’s stunned silent or perhaps silently asking me to continue since my ex-husband’s a taboo subject I’ve rarely broached.
“For a while, after my marriage, it felt like my parents could never forgive me—and they never even met thependajobecause they were dead. Beforehim,all I had was myself for the longest. If . . . if I could go back . . .” Air clogs in my throat.
“You’d rewrite the narrative?”
No.Not that I was addicted to the pain, I had my reasons.A trillion images overtake my mind. My face shoved into the ground. Adnan’s insatiable colleagues. Theotherwomen. Public humiliation. Just when the answer screamsrun, the one true reason why I walked the ledge the night of Adnan’s second wedding comes to fruition in my mind. A feeling I cling to, holding on to for dear life.
“Kieran, Adnan an—”
His cellphone rings. With one hand clasping the inside of my thigh, Kieran encourages, “Tell me later, yeah?”
With my mouth lightly curved at the edges, I nod. Satisfied, he places the phone on speaker. “What?”
“Kieran, son.”
The hope extended from the story I started to tell, and the mystery of his sister’s whereabouts fades from Kieran’s face. Though less ruthless than normal, Kieran says, “Uncle Gowan, now’s not the time—”
“Oh, I thought you’d like to know someone’s wee sister is sleeping in Brennan’s bed.”
After a hard, relieved huff, Kieran grunts out, “On my way, Gowan.”
I’m bubbling in delight as Kieran taps the off button.
“Hey, that’s good news.”
“Brilliantfeckingnews. I’m gonna kill my wee sister. Bring her back too.”